


parental guidance

by Jelly



Series: wholesome truths [3]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Co-Parenting, F/M, Gen, still trash and always will be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 21:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelly/pseuds/Jelly
Summary: “He’s only a baby dragon. Raising him can’t be that hard.”[For Sugarssaur1004 who wanted some parental rayllum].





	parental guidance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sugarssaur1004](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sugarssaur1004/gifts).



> Fic idea: Rayla and Callum acting as parents to Zym. *slides into a bush*

parental guidance

 

The day Callum tried to tell Ezran that their father was gone, Ez had gone into a little spiel that, at the time, just sounded stupid. It’d been a reminder really; despite the importance and the gravity of their mission, Ezran was (and still is) just a kid. He’s probably back in Katolis by now, and maybe it’s just because Callum misses his brother, or just because he’s never been so far from home, but on quiet nights like tonight, he finds himself thinking about that spiel a lot.

“Someone’s gonna have to teach Zym all the things he supposed to do. Everything he’s supposed to be. And he’s meant to learn it all from a big strong King of the Dragons. But… he doesn’t have that. All he’s got is me.”

The realization feels like being hit in the face with a brick.

He sits up with a start. On the other side of the fire, Rayla’s already asleep, curled loosely around Zym with his cloak pillowed under her head. He hesitates for a moment, reluctant to disturb her, but there’s an odd sort of anxiety gnawing at him from the inside and there’s no one else. He crawls around the fire.

“ _Rayla,_ ” he hisses. “Rayla, wake up.”

She groans and rolls away from him, twigs caught on the back of her shirt, dry foliage tangled in the ends of her hair.

Callum takes a breath and prods her side. “Rayla, it’s important.”

She whines a little, but she sits up slowly, eyes still half closed, mouth opening in an enormous yawn. She reaches behind her for her blades. "What is it?” she grumbles. “Are we being attacked?”

“Um - no.” Callum sets a hand on her arm, easing the blade down carefully. “We’re fine. We’re safe. It’s just - we have no idea how to raise Zym.”

Rayla pauses. She blinks at him with sleep-crusted eyes, rubs a palm across her face like she’s unsure on whether or not she’s still asleep, and stares, bleary but obviously disgruntled. “Are you being serious?”

It’s not phrased like a question, and Callum finds himself suddenly very thankful that she’s so tired or this conversation might be altogether less polite. It’s important though - at least, he thinks so - and he presses on. “We have no idea what we’re doing,” he says. “We’re not equipped to be raising him.”

She squints a little, like even the dying fire is too bright for her this early in the morning. “We’re not _raising_ him,” she grumbles. “We’re taking him to his mum. _She’ll_ do the raising.”

“Formative learning starts early!” argues Callum. “Ez was right when he thought he needed to teach Zym how to be the Dragon Prince - he needs to start learning about what he is _now._ ”

“ _Callum.”_  Rayla groans at him and pinches the bridge of her nose. “He’s _a week old_. All he wants right now is food and sleep and affection. It’s not like we have to teach him politics.”

“But what if he grows up spoilt because we just give him everything he wants? What if we screw up and let him eat something poisonous to sky dragons? What if -”

Rayla sighs, exhausted, impatient, but she lays a hand on his shoulder anyway, both out of habit and out of the need to comfort him. “It’ll be _fine,_  Callum. He’s a baby, not an idiot - and he’s got the both of us. We’ll take care of him.”

“I thought that too at first!” says Callum, wringing his hands. “But, Rayla, a week ago, we had Ez, and at least Ez could talk to him. Now we don’t even have him! How are we supposed to help him become the big strong sky dragon he’s supposed to be?”

“By making sure he gets to his mum in one piece,” answers Rayla, stifling another yawn. “And we _will_ do that, I swear to you, but right now, the best thing for us - all _three_ of us -” she nods at Zym and the way he’s starting to stir - “is to go back to sleep. We won’t get very far tomorrow if we’re all sleep deprived.”

She’s right, and there’s a rational part in Callum’s brain that knows that she is, but the rest of him stays unconvinced. But Rayla catches the look on his face and squeezes his shoulder once more.

“Everything will be fine, Callum, I promise you that.”

He sighs. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” says Rayla, smiling at him in spite of the fatigue in her eyes. “Besides,” she adds. “He’s only a baby dragon. Raising him can’t be that hard.”

 

 

They’re words Rayla comes to regret almost as soon as the morning dawns over them. Callum doesn’t really know how it happened - he’d had trouble getting back to sleep, and when he did, he’d tossed and turned until the sound of Xadian bluebirds had woken him while the sky was light but still deep blue. He’d given up then, and though sleep would have been the most useful thing to do, he’d settled for the next best thing and taken his and Rayla’s skins to the river to fill them up with water for the day.

When he comes back, Rayla’s hair is tousled and her eyes are still tired, but she’s glaring up at Zym who’s sitting on a bough with - somehow - one of her blades in his mouth.

“Put it down, Zym!” she snaps, hands on her hips, irritated and stern. “It’s not a toy! Don’t make me come up there!”

Zym ignores her and chews happily on the hilt.

Call raises an eyebrow at her. "‘ _Raising him can’t be that hard’_ , huh?”

“Shut up,” snaps Rayla. “Are you going to help me or are you going to stand there and _let_ the Dragon Prince cut himself up?”

She’s in a mood. Part of it is probably Callum’s fault - he’d woken her up last night, after all. The rest of it is probably Zym, being a handful, and a nuisance, but most of all, being a _baby dragon._ The “I told you so,” builds in his throat, but she’s annoyed enough, he thinks, and he decides to save it for another day.

 

 

The bigger Zym grows, the more he hates Callum’s pack.

He hasn’t grown a lot - he’s only a week and a half now, but he’s just grown _enough_ to make the pack a tight fit. Callum can’t really blame him - it can’t be comfortable cooped up in there most of the day, but they put him there because he has a tendency to wander off.

The first time it happens, they’re on the outskirts of a town of sunfire elves. They don’t notice until they try to feed him.

“Callum,” starts Rayla. She’s got a dead rabbit in one hand and a bowl of water in the other, and she’s frowning at their camp. “Where’s Zym?”

Callum looks up from the half finished sketch of the mountains in the distance. “What do you mean, ‘where’s Zym’?”

She scowls at him. “I _mean_ that you had him last and he’s not here.”

There’s a pause.

“Uh-oh.”

Uh-oh indeed.

They stamp out the fire, and pack up their things; Rayla pours out the bowl of water and stuffs the rabbit in Callum’s pack, scowling the whole time -“‘ _Uh-oh’_ ?” she snaps, “You _lost_ the Dragon Prince and all you can say is ‘ _uh-oh_ ’?” - to which Callum replies (with equal fervour), “You know, this is a _two person job_ , I mean _you_ could have been paying closer attention too!” - but the important thing is finding Zym, and whatever sharp words they have for each other, they quash in favour of calling for him in the woods.

They find him in a barrel just outside of town, munching happily on a fish.

“Zym!”scolds Rayla. “How could you run off like that? Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

“Yeah,” says Callum, frowning sternly at him, but he eyes the fish curiously and falters. “Hey, did you catch that fish all by yourself? Nice work, buddy!”

Rayla slaps his arm. “Don’t reward him!”

“Right, yeah, sorry - Zym, you can’t run off like that!” Callum lifts him out of the barrel and taps his nose sharply. The ‘I-told-you-so’ rings in his mind, but he keeps it there and follows Rayla back into the woods.

 

 

“Don’t be picky, Zym. Eat your berries.”

It’s late afternoon. Zym sniffs suspiciously at the berries in Rayla’s palm and makes a face.

“It’s all we’ve got!”

He shakes his head and turns away.

The ‘I-told-you-so’ almost slips.

 

 

“Zym! Get down from there, that’s dangerous!”

 

 

“ _Zym_ ! That’s _not_ food!”

 

 

“ _Azymondias!_ You’re such a handful!”

 

 

It’s endearing to watch, thinks Callum. Rayla, agile, and amazing, and skillful as she is, gets easily frustrated, and more often than not, it’s Zym’s fault. Callum had warned her, and every day Zym does something silly, he’s tempted to tell her - “I told you so.”

But he doesn’t.

It’s frustrating for him too, but she’s nothing but supportive, and every day, she reminds him that everything will be _fine,_ even though there’s been a bunch of times that she’s probably doubted it.

Parenting is hard. He hopes, in the _very_ distant future, if he ever _does_ become a parent, he’ll have someone as supportive as her.

 

 

Rayla kisses him in the rain outside a Xadian inn.

They’ve only known each other a few weeks now, but it feels like a long time coming. Callum had figured it a little while ago, when she’d pressed one of her blades in his hand; when her hands lingered on his; when he realized how much he needed her to be a part of his life.

They take a key from the innkeeper and stumble up the stairs. She fumbles with it as she tries to unlock their room, but when she closes the door, he shrugs off his pack and puts his lips back on hers.

Gods, it’s wonderful. _She’s_ wonderful and it feels like he’s been waiting forever for this - for _her._ Her lips are cold and they're both soaked to the bone, but she fits against him like she was made to, and though her hands are on his face and his are in her hair, she’s _still_ not close enough. She tugs off his scarf and her fingers find their way under his jacket as he pulls them both onto the bed; as he peels off her vest, and as she unclasps his shirt; and -

There’s a chirp, and Rayla pulls back as something scrambles onto the bed to sit squarely on Callum’s chest.

“Zym!” he groans, breathless and frustrated. “Do you _mind_?”

Zym tilts his head at him and grins the way only a dragon can, teeth showing, tongue hanging out of his mouth. Rayla’s still sitting on his hips, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, her own breath shaking as she exhales, but Zym doesn’t care, and he shuffles forward on Callum’s chest to give him a couple of eager, zappy kisses.

Rayla laughs and climbs off him entirely. “He probably doesn’t need to see any of that anyway,” she says shyly, scratching Zym’s ears. “And we… probably shouldn’t.”

“You suck, Zym,” grumbles Callum, but he knows she’s right. “You’re so needy.”

“He’s a _baby_ ,” says Rayla with a chuckle. “He doesn’t know any better. Even if he is annoying.”

Callum smirks. The ‘I-told-you-so’ forms in his mouth, but he grips Rayla’s hand in his and lets it pass.

 

 

“You can say it, you know,” says Rayla, later that night. They’re facing each other in the little bed with Zym sleeping comfortably on both their hips.

“Say what?”

“That you told me so,” she says, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “I was tempting fate that day. When I said looking after Zym ‘can’t be that hard’. I was wrong.”

Callum chuckles and rubs Zym’s ears with gentle fingers. “I-told-you-so’s are petty,” he murmurs. “I like you more than I care about being right. Besides, you’re _not_ wrong. Everything’s been fine. He’s been handful, but he’s _fine_. And… he’ll be home soon.”

“Yeah,” says Rayla, reaching for his hand and gripping it tight. “He will.”

  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Years and years later, while Rayla’s throwing up in a bathroom in the elven town of Asvedell because of the bump in her belly, Callum says something stupid.

“I know this sucks right now, but think of how exciting it’ll be to meet him or her!”

“It still sucks,” she groans, wiping her mouth off with the back of her wrist. She leans her head against the wall and tries to breathe for a moment, and Callum chuckles and rubs circles into her back. “I hate you, by the way," she adds. "This is your fault. This one’ll be just as annoying as _you,_  I can feel it.”

He laughs. “I promise, when he or she arrives, I’ll make it up to you. Besides, we raised Zym, didn’t we? Our baby can’t be that hard to raise.”

 

(He’s wrong. _So_ wrong. But Rayla never tells him she told him so).

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I have like 6 other prompts in my inbox but I'm taking a break, you guys, I'm writing myself ragged lol. I was aiming for something a little more fun than the other three, but I don't even know if this makes sense??? Sorry if this sucks!!
> 
> 2) I wish I could say parts of this _weren't_ inspired by true stories, and I wish I could, at the very least, say that those true stories were legitimate true stories, but mostly they're just inspired by my cats.
> 
> 3) As before, related to the other three in this series, but doesn't have to be read that way.


End file.
